Pasta is the perfect quick and easy comfort food. You can whip up a bowl in less time than it takes for the pizza delivery to arrive. Short or long, dried or fresh, saucy or not, stuffed, layered, baked – the possibilities are endless with this simple, delicious food.
Spinach & Ricotta Cannelloni Spinach and ricotta cannelloni is an easy dish that can be prepared a few hours ahead of time, then just put in the oven at the last minute – perfect for casual entertaining. I use Barilla cannelloni tubes that don’t need to be cooked before filling, the moisture from the sauce […]
Pesto Tagliatelle How often do you buy a bunch of basil, use a dozen leaves or so in a sauce or salad then wonder what to do with the rest? The answer’s easy, pesto, the famous bright green sauce of Liguria; though if you’re buying basil specifically to make pesto, get a pot of living […]
Chicken Minestrone Literally meaning ‘big soup’, minestrone is a hearty Italian dish half way between a soup and a stew. Vegetable-based, it was traditionally made from leftovers and whatever was in the garden or foraged nearby, so feel free to use this recipe as a guide for your own inspiration. Beans or pasta, often both, […]
Spaghetti Aglio, Olio e Peperoncino The simplest recipes are often the favourites, the ones with the most views on this website are croque monsieur (a.k.a. toasted ham & cheese sandwich) and affogato (ice cream ‘drowned’ in coffee and liqueur), hardly recipes at all. Spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino is another of my super simple favourites […]
Fettuccine with Black Truffle For many of us, one of the highlights of winter is truffles. But it wasn’t always so in Australia. On 18 June 1999 Duncan Garvey harvested Australia’s first Perigord black truffle in Tasmania. Since then truffles have also been cultivated in NSW, ACT, WA, SA, Queensland, Victoria and New Zealand. While […]
Chicken Soup with Fregola Avgolemono-Style Who doesn’t love a good chicken soup – the universal panacea? This version is more of a meal than a soup – and it tastes great! It came about as a way to use up the delicious chicken stock leftover from making Steeped Chicken and I suggest you make it […]
Gnocchi alla Sorrentina This deliciously simple dish is so easy even a child can make it (see video below). It’s named for the town of Sorrento on Italy’s Amalfi coast and I first ate it at Trattoria Da Ciccio. This family-run restaurant is perched on a cliff edge just north of Amalfi, and the tomatoes […]
Pasta alla Puttanesca “Puttana” is the Italian word for prostitute and I love the apocryphal story of how Neapolitan pasta alla puttanesca was named. Most respectable Italian women used to (and some indeed still do) shop for fresh ingredients every day, but not the busy working girls of Naples who worked a 6-and-a-half day week […]
Orecchiette, Broccoli, Anchovies & Chilli This classic dish from Puglia is also popular in neighbouring Basilicata. It highlights one of the many reasons to love pasta – it’s literally on the table in less time than it takes for a pizza delivery to arrive! It may look simple, even a little odd, but it’s so […]
Pasta e Fagioli Like this recipe? You’ll love my online Traditional Italian cooking class! Also called pasta fazool (or pasta fasul), pasta e fagioli is not a precise recipe, every Nonna across Italy makes a variation based on what she has on hand. This is my version, but as long as there’s pasta and beans […]
